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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burritos

I cook several nights a week, sometimes by myself and sometimes with Mike. For a while now though, we've gotten into a routine of me cooking for us on Monday and Wednesday nights, as Mike works late on those evenings. Some nights when I'm cooking for the two of us, I take more time to make an "elaborate" meal (although, nothing I make is ever that elaborate!!). Then there are other nights when I use the extra time I have when Mike's still working to take care of "stuff." There's always so much to do! Go to the gym, do errands, and you know, just take care of all those random things that pile up... So, on those nights when I'm being super productive and my focus on cooking dinner takes up much less of my time and effort, I put together an easy meal like these sweet potato and black bean burritos. Simple, quick, healthy, and delicious! Love it. I made these last week on a night Mike was working late. It was a win-win; I still had lots of time to be productive and take care of things, and I was also able to get dinner on the table to feed my hungry fiance at 9 pm! :)

This recipe is adapted from The Novice Chef. The ingredients I used are below.

Ingredients:

-1 medium onion, finely chopped

-1 garlic clove, minced

-1/4 to 1/2 tsp. chili powder

-1/2 tsp. pepper

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1 15-oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed

-2 medium to large sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed (without skins)

-tortillas or wraps of your choice (I used 8-inch whole wheat wraps)

-sour cream

-fresh cilantro

-salsa

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. To prepare your sweet potatoes, you can do one of two things. You can bake them in the oven for about 45 minutes to an hour (bake them with the skins on, but poke some holes in the potatoes with a fork first). Or, you can do what I did last week when I made these... I microwaved my potatoes! Remember how I wanted to make an easy dinner and save time? Well, you can very easily microwave sweet potatoes too. Pierce them with a fork, and microwave each one for 6 to 10 minutes (depends on your microwave) until tender. Voila! Works just as well as baking them, and it's an especially easy method when you're using the sweet potatoes for a dish like these burritos. More specific instructions for microwaving sweet potatoes can be found here.

Once your sweet potatoes are cooked, use a fork or spoon to remove the inside and discard the skins. Place the sweet potatoes in a bowl and mash them with a fork.

To prepare the black bean filling, heat a teaspoon or so of olive oil in a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add finely chopped onion and minced garlic to pan, and saute until they become slightly brown and translucent, about 4 to 6 minutes. Mix in the chili powder, salt, and pepper, and cook for 1 more minute before removing from heat.

In a food processor, pulse the black beans and onion mixture until smooth. Fill each wrap with about 1/3 cup of the black bean mixture and 1/3 cup of the mashed sweet potatoes. Roll the wraps into burrito shapes (I honestly had no idea how to do this, so mine looked like the picture you see above!). Grease a cookie sheet or baking pan, and place burritos on the pan. Bake for 15 minutes, until the inside of the burritos is nice and hot.

Serve with sour cream, salsa, or any other toppings of your choice!

I chopped up some fresh cilantro and mixed it with sour cream for some added flavor. The outer edges of the burritos got slightly crispy as they baked in the oven. YUM!

These were extremely tasty! And they were light to eat, yet filling at the same time. Such a fun and easy weeknight meal. Even though they were meatless, Mike loved them too! But then again, he'd probably love any dinner I cooked him at 9:00 at night after a long day's work...